*TRIGGER WARNING* – this extract details the mindset of a very ill mother contemplating killing her baby.
Good Afternoon and welcome to my stop on the #blogtour for The Mothers by Sarah J Naughton. I am very much looking forward to reading this book when it is published in paperback in April, but for now I have a VERY DISTURBING extract to whet the appetite.
Synopsis
Five Women.
They meet at their NCT Group. The only thing they have in common is they’re all pregnant.
Five Secrets.Three years later, they are all good friends. Aren’t they?
One Missing Husband.
Now the police have come knocking. Someone knows something.
And the trouble with secrets is that someone always tells.
Extract
The only thing to do was to kill him. Otherwise something else certainly would. The junkies she saw shambling along the pavement as she sat listlessly by the window would stab him with their needles as they passed the pram.
The germs that polluted every surface would drift into his nostrils, taking root in his tiny lungs, percolating through his bloodstream, poisoning him.
His very birth had almost killed him. Her pre-eclampsia had led to multiple organ failure. He had been delivered blue and lifeless, revived by desperate doctors. Her milk hadn’t come through because there was still placenta left in her body. She had to go back to hospital for a D&C, during which she lost three pints of blood, and afterwards an infection meant she still couldn’t breastfeed. He became jaundiced and skeletal and had to be put on a drip.
It was all a sign that the world was too dangerous for him. But they had made her take him home, and her husband had gone back to work, and now they were alone, just the two of them against the vast savagery of the world.
A month after his birth, her consciousness had shrunk down to a single point of pure terror. She forced herself to stay awake all night, checking that he was breathing, taking his temperature, roaming the darkened house looking for intruders just waiting for a gap in her vigilance. She didn’t dare eat in case some toxin passed into him.
People were lying to her all the time. Even her husband. He was making plans, she knew, to take the baby away from her. To give him to someone who would not love him, who would neglect and abuse and finally murder him. Then came the revelation.
There was a way to keep him safe forever. It was late afternoon, the sky already darkening. Winter was coming, full of bitter cold and disease. He napped upstairs as she kept vigil at the window in her pyjamas, staring out at the threatening sky and the angry cars. Her phone rang. One of her so-called ‘friends’ checking up on her. Spying on her, to report back to her husband. He would be home soon. She had to act now. She got up and went into the hall. Faces grinned down at her from the walls, all teeth and eyes. Were there cameras behind those glittering black pupils ?
Grunting with effort, the fresh scars straining and burning, she climbed the stairs and went into her bedroom. Then she came out again and walked down the landing. He was still napping. He would never even know. Animals danced on his walls, a hare, a stag and an owl. Wild beasts of ancient magic. They knew what she had to do. They would protect him, stay by his side as his spirit animals, carry him to peace and safety.
She bent to kiss his warm forehead. From downstairs she heard the front door close. Someone was calling her name.
She didn’t reply. Time was running out.
She raised the pillow.
Footsteps drummed on the stairs like the prelude to an execution.
Her baby opened his eyes. She lowered the pillow.
The Mothers is out is out now in ebook and you can buy it here
My thanks go to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers for my invitation to the #blogtour. If you enjoyed my post, please do check out my others, and also the other stops on the #blogtour (see below).
Until next time!
@mrscookesbooks
Mrs Cooke’s Books 